January Cyber War and Cyber Conflict Link Roundup

Wow, what a month. Two big stories to note: USCC is seeking to grow over 5x to 4900 people, and the NYTimes (and WSJ it seems) have been hacked, purportedly by the Chinese over their China coverage. In other news, a new discovery of the ‘Red October’ campaign filled the headlines, although by now these sorts of things feel standard issue. On a related note, DARPA is getting ready to issue a BAA for their CAT program, using big data to tackle targeted attacks.

An upcoming event to note in the DC area: Suits and Spooks, next week (February 8 and 9).

Israel is developing a national program that trains young people for cyber warfare to boost its ability to deal with the increasing number of online attacks.
According to The Jerusalem Post’s report Wednesday, the program named “Magshimim Le’umit” has been in development for the past three years and targets outstanding pupils aged between 16 and 18 to join up.
Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the country’s computer systems are facing attacks from Iran and other countries, and such attacks are set to increase in the digital age. The goverment is also bolstering its ability to deal with these threats through the Israel National Cyber Bureau (INCB), he added.

In 2012, large-scale cyberattacks targeted at the Iranian government were uncovered, and in return, Iran is believed to have launched massive attacks aimed at U.S. banks and Saudi oil companies. At least 12 of the world’s 15 largest military powers are currently building cyberwarfare programs, according to James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A major cyber-attack that may have been stealing confidential documents since 2007 has been discovered by Russian researchers.
Kaspersky Labs told the BBC the malware targeted government institutions such as embassies, nuclear research centres and oil and gas institutes.
It was designed to steal encrypted files – and was even able to recover files that had been deleted.

MPs have complained about government ‘complacency’ in their assessment of when military forces should involve themselves in cyber warfare, pointing to a potentially fatal reliance on inadequately protected systems.
In a report released today, the Defence Committee said the government did not appear to have a fully-constructed plan for dealing with a major cyber attack. Meanwhile, the ever-changing threat landscape, coupled with a major reliance on IT, made for a potentially lethal brew for the UK military as it prepares for cyber warfare.

U.S. intelligence officials have warned as nation-sponsored cyber warfare goes mainstream this year, attacks on U.S. installations and institutions could result not just in damage and theft but in fatalities.
They believe fatalities could occur and “that is the best estimate at this point,” said the former senior intelligence official.
Currently 12 of the world’s 15 largest military powers are building cyber warfare programs, these intelligence sources told ISSSource, adding the number of intrusions and attacks has increased dramatically over the last several years.

The Defense Department hopes to offload some of the work of analyzing network vulnerabilities to a machine, Pentagon officials said on Friday.
The Cyber Targeted Attack Analyzer is intended to reduce the workload for the department?s short-handed cyber forces by organizing information from ‘disparate network data sources’ to more easily see computer abnormalities, according to the Pentagon’s laboratory. Information technology development efforts will kick off with a briefing for prospective contractors on Jan. 30, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency officials said. DARPA expects to release a solicitation for project proposals within a few weeks afterward.
The trick will be reeling in all that intelligence from devices that are not necessarily compatible.

The Pentagon has announced the initiation of a program to develop an integrated threat analysis system that will significantly improve the Defense Department?s ability to identify network security vulnerabilities by leveraging the power of Big Data analytics. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O) will host an informative briefing on January 30th in a run-up to a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) in a few weeks that will include a Request for Information (RFI) that will officially commence the process for accepting proposals from vendors for the development of the Cyber Targeted-Attack Analyzer (CAT) Program, according to a Special Notice released by DARPA, the DoD’s research and development branch.

The number of attacks reported to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity response team grew by 52% in 2012, according to a recent report from the team. There were 198 attacks brought to the agency’s attention last year, several of which resulted in successful break-ins.
An earlier report from DHS sketched in details on some of those successes. An unidentified group of hackers targeting natural gas pipeline companies gained access to the corporate systems of several of their targets and “exfiltrated” — that’s security-speak for “stole” — data on how their control systems work.

The Army’s Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate, known as I2WD, hosted a classified planning day Nov. 28. Representatives from 60 companies and labs attended to discuss what can be done in the realm of electronic warfare and cyber, according to a source familiar with the program.
The roughly half-dozen objectives of the Tactical Electromagnetic Cyber Warfare Demonstrator program are classified. (The TECWD program is pronounced ‘techwood’ by participants.) The source said the program is designed to demonstrate ready-made systems, dubbed ‘boxes,’ that can perform a variety of tasks. Some are somewhat typical fare, like systems aimed at the improvised explosive device threat.
But among the objectives are these: inserting and extracting data from sealed, wired networks.

General William Shelton, commander of the US Air Force Space Command, told reporters in a press briefing for the Defense Writers Group that he believes Iran’s growing “cyber” capabilities will be a “force to be reckoned with,” thanks in part to Iran’s response to the Stuxnet attacks on its nuclear facilities in 2010.

The front pages have been dominated for more than a year by photos of young Syrian rebel fighters, armed and proud, battling an increasingly isolated Syrian military.
But amid the shooting, the atrocities and the bombings, there is a parallel war – a sophisticated cyber insurgency battling a shadowy team working on behalf of the Assad regime. The Syrians’ online conflict may be the most active cyberwar in recent memory, with extraordinary efforts by both sides to sabotage, disrupt and destroy. It may even foreshadow the way cyber battles will play out in future conflicts.

The Head of FETA (Iran’s cyber police) says the police has identified the source of attack to US Citibank, and denies that Iranians have a role in attack, Mehr News Agency reported from Tehran on Sunday.
“The attack sources have not been located inside Iran and even Iranian users have been victimized,” says Brigadier General Seyed Kamal Hadianfar, the head of Iranian Cyber Police in an interview to Mehr News.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Thursday likened the threat posed by foreign hackers to “modern-day, 21st century nuclear weapons” and pledged to use diplomacy to avert cyber attacks against the nation?s power grid, transportation system and financial networks.

President Vladimir Putin recently ordered the Federal Security Service to create a system to allow the state to detect, prevent and disable cyberattacks in Russia and at diplomatic stations abroad. It is an ambitious goal and one that the FSB is well-equipped to tackle with the help of its Information Security Center and Communications Security Center. But the FSB might very well go beyond its immediate mandate to neutralize hacker attacks against Russia and expand its cyberspace presence among members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, perhaps even gaining access to information on hacker attacks waged around the world.

The Pentagon has approved a major expansion of its cybersecurity force over the next several years, increasing its size more than fivefold to bolster the nation’s ability to defend critical computer systems and conduct offensive computer operations against foreign adversaries, according to U.S. officials.

SAN FRANCISCO — For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.
After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in.

But information warfare, warfare pursued with information technologies, distorts concepts like “necessity” and “civilian” in ways that challenge these ethical frameworks. An attack on another nation’s information infrastructure, for instance, would surely count as an act of war. But what if it reduced the risk of future bloodshed? Should we really only consider it as a last resort? The use of robots further complicates things. It’s not yet clear who should be held responsible if and when an autonomous military robot kills a civilian.

I can already hear the chuckling. ‘Cyber warfare’ Balanced? And I’d like partisanship in Washington to end, a double date with Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson, and some fries with that!? Yes, my desire is utopian, but the fact that I would have to qualify it with a self-deprecating remark suggests the distance that we have yet to travel before we can get more value out of our present conversation on the topic of cyber warfare.

Yet, 90 percent of US critical cyber infrastructure is owned by the private sector. Melissa Hathaway, who served as the cyber coordination executive for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), has rightly pointed out that corporate and political leaders “appear to be paralyzed about meeting the needs for our cyber infrastructures and enterprises.” This current deadlock undercuts American security interests, and Congress must strike a balance between competing policy perspectives for cyber security. The dilemma is that earning a profit motivates industry, while protecting national security motivates the USG. Although often complementary, these agendas do compete. What is required is a confluent approach that removes legislative obstacles to stronger cyber security, forges robust partnerships between the public and private sectors, and better manages risk in the global supply chain. A review of current US strategy and the threat matrix is instructive in framing a new approach.

As more people come to rely on the Internet, they rely on it to be secure. And as the online world becomes a part of everything we do, securing that world is essential to ensuring a society that remains secure, prosperous and free.

Some of the most important discussions that will take place in 2013 will be around the need for the private sector to become more aggressive in the defense of their systems. These questions and more will be examined and debated at Suits and Spooks DC to be held at the Waterview Conference Center in Arlington, VA on February 8-9, 2013. We?ll be inviting industry veterans, government officials, hackers, lawyers, Special Operations Forces personnel, and security researchers to join in the discussion along with our registered attendees.

Bob Gourley, former CTO of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), is Founder and CTO of Crucial Point LLC, a technology research and advisory firm providing fact based technology reviews in support of venture capital, private equity and emerging technology firms. He has extensive industry experience in intelligence and security and was awarded an intelligence community meritorious achievement award by AFCEA in 2008, and has also been recognized as an Infoworld Top 25 CTO and as one of the most fascinating communicators in Government IT by GovFresh.

SYS-CON Events announced today that HPM Networks will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
For 20 years, HPM Networks has been integrating technology solutions that solve complex business challenges. HPM Networks has designed solutions for both SMB and enterprise customers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

With SaaS use rampant across organizations, how can IT departments track company data and maintain security? More and more departments are commissioning their own solutions and bypassing IT. A cloud environment is amorphous and powerful, allowing you to set up solutions for all of your user needs: document sharing and collaboration, mobile access, e-mail, even industry-specific applications.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Shawn Mills, President and a founder of Green House Data, discussed h...

For IoT to grow as quickly as analyst firms’ project, a lot is going to fall on developers to quickly bring applications to market. But the lack of a standard development platform threatens to slow growth and make application development more time consuming and costly, much like we’ve seen in the mobile space.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mike Weiner, Product Manager of the Omega DevCloud with KORE Telematics Inc., discussed the evolving requirements for developers as IoT matures and conducte...

There are many considerations when moving applications from on-premise to cloud. It is critical to understand the benefits and also challenges of this migration. A successful migration will result in lower Total Cost of Ownership, yet offer the same or higher level of robustness.
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Michael Meiner, an Engineering Director at Oracle, Corporation, analyzed a range of cloud offerings (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and discussed the benefits/challenges of migrating to each offe...

One of the hottest areas in cloud right now is DRaaS and related offerings.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Dale Levesque, Disaster Recovery Product Manager with Windstream's Cloud and Data Center Marketing team, will discuss the benefits of the cloud model, which far outweigh the traditional approach, and how enterprises need to ensure that their needs are properly being met.

"We've just seen a huge influx of new partners coming into our ecosystem, and partners building unique offerings on top of our API set," explained Seth Bostock, Chief Executive Officer at IndependenceIT, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

Malicious agents are moving faster than the speed of business. Even more worrisome, most companies are relying on legacy approaches to security that are no longer capable of meeting current threats. In the modern cloud, threat diversity is rapidly expanding, necessitating more sophisticated security protocols than those used in the past or in desktop environments. Yet companies are falling for cloud security myths that were truths at one time but have evolved out of existence.

Public Cloud IaaS started its life in the developer and startup communities and has grown rapidly to a $20B+ industry, but it still pales in comparison to how much is spent worldwide on IT: $3.6 trillion. In fact, there are 8.6 million data centers worldwide, the reality is many small and medium sized business have server closets and colocation footprints filled with servers and storage gear. While on-premise environment virtualization may have peaked at 75%, the Public Cloud has lagged in adop...

The Cloud industry has moved from being more than just being able to provide infrastructure and management services on the Cloud. Enter a new era of Cloud computing where monetization’s services through the Cloud are an essential piece of strategy to feed your organizations bottom-line, your revenue and Profitability.
In their session at 16th Cloud Expo, Ermanno Bonifazi, CEO & Founder of Solgenia, and Ian Khan, Global Strategic Positioning & Brand Manager at Solgenia, discussed how to easily o...

Growth hacking is common for startups to make unheard-of progress in building their business. Career Hacks can help Geek Girls and those who support them (yes, that's you too, Dad!) to excel in this typically male-dominated world.
Get ready to learn the facts:
Is there a bias against women in the tech / developer communities?
Why are women 50% of the workforce, but hold only 24% of the STEM or IT positions?
Some beginnings of what to do about it!
In her Opening Keynote at 16th Cloud Expo, S...

In his keynote at 16th Cloud Expo, Rodney Rogers, CEO of Virtustream, discussed the evolution of the company from inception to its recent acquisition by EMC – including personal insights, lessons learned (and some WTF moments) along the way. Learn how Virtustream’s unique approach of combining the economics and elasticity of the consumer cloud model with proper performance, application automation and security into a platform became a breakout success with enterprise customers and a natural fit f...

"We have been in business for 21 years and have been building many enterprise solutions, all IT plumbing - server, storage, interconnects," stated Alex Gorbachev, President of Intelligent Systems Services, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

The essence of cloud computing is that all consumable IT resources are delivered as services.
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Yung Chou, Technology Evangelist at Microsoft, demonstrated the concepts and implementations of two important cloud computing deliveries: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). He discussed from business and technical viewpoints what exactly they are, why we care, how they are different and in what ways, and the strategies for IT to tran...

Discussions about cloud computing are evolving into discussions about enterprise IT in general. As enterprises increasingly migrate toward their own unique clouds, new issues such as the use of containers and microservices emerge to keep things interesting.
In this Power Panel at 16th Cloud Expo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed the state of cloud computing today, and what enterprise IT professionals need to know about how the latest topics and trends affect t...

"Our biggest growth area has been the security services, the managed services - the things that differentiate us in the market that there is no client that's too small and there's no client that's too big," explained Paul Mazzucco, Chief Security Officer at TierPoint, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

"We do data integration for B2B also application to application, and we do data management and enable Big Data," explained Pat Adamiak, Vice President, Product Marketing at Liaison Technologies, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

It is one thing to build single industrial IoT applications, but what will it take to build the Smart Cities and truly society-changing applications of the future? The technology won’t be the problem, it will be the number of parties that need to work together and be aligned in their motivation to succeed.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jason Mondanaro, Director, Product Management at Metanga, discussed how you can plan to cooperate, partner, and form lasting all-star teams to change the world...

SYS-CON Events announced today that Agema Systems will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Agema Systems is the leading provider of critical white-box rack solutions to data centers through the major integrators and value added distribution channels.

Converging digital disruptions is creating a major sea change - Cisco calls this the Internet of Everything (IoE). IoE is the network connection of People, Process, Data and Things, fueled by Cloud, Mobile, Social, Analytics and Security, and it represents a $19Trillion value-at-stake over the next 10 years.
In her keynote at @ThingsExpo, Manjula Talreja, VP of Cisco Consulting Services, discussed IoE and the enormous opportunities it provides to public and private firms alike. She will share w...

In the midst of the widespread popularity and adoption of cloud computing, it seems like everything is being offered “as a Service” these days: Infrastructure? Check. Platform? You bet. Software? Absolutely. Toaster? It’s only a matter of time. With service providers positioning vastly differing offerings under a generic “cloud” umbrella, it’s all too easy to get confused about what’s actually being offered.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Kevin Hazard, Director of Digital Content for SoftL...

As organizations realize the scope of the Internet of Things, gaining key insights from Big Data, through the use of advanced analytics, becomes crucial. However, IoT also creates the need for petabyte scale storage of data from millions of devices. A new type of Storage is required which seamlessly integrates robust data analytics with massive scale. These storage systems will act as “smart systems” provide in-place analytics that speed discovery and enable businesses to quickly derive meaningful and actionable insights.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Paul Turner, Chief Marketing Officer at...

Digital Transformation is the ultimate goal of cloud computing and related initiatives. The phrase is certainly not a precise one, and as subject to hand-waving and distortion as any high-falutin' terminology in the world of information technology.
Yet it is an excellent choice of words to describe what enterprise IT—and by extension, organizations in general—should be working to achieve.
Digital Transformation means:
handling all the data types being found and created in the organization
understanding that through mobility, data is being generated and analyzed on the edges of the e...

“Dad, if my character dies in the game, would I die in the real world?”
What a beautifully naive question that my son, Trevor, asked me during a son-dad conversation about how games might change over the years.
Earlier last year, Mattel’s CEO, Bryan Stockton, was fired. After three years, it was clear that Mattel was continuing to be challenged with sales weakness, and lower gross margins, which drove down shareholder value.
As parents, we ALL know that it’s a very competitive toy aisle, and our kids are much different than we were at their age.

Tableau Software and big data analytics platforms come together to provide visualization benefits for those seeking more than just crunched numbers.
The next BriefingsDirect big data innovation discussion highlights how Tableau Software and big data analytics platforms come together to provide visualization benefits for those seeking more than just crunched numbers. They're looking for ways to improve their businesses effectively and productively, and to share the analysis quickly and broadly.

The concept behind the Internet of Things has been around for a while now, ATMs being some of the first enterprise, hardened, network-connected, managed devices for mainstream consumer use. So too with our mobile phones, these are not new concepts to network technicians or hardware geeks. But for the rest of us, we simply never imagined the extents that the "ubiquity of connectedness" would take all other industries, from biotech to automotive, personal care to agriculture, entertainment to custom manufacturing. The list is as long as our imaginations.

Conservation International (CI) in Arlington, Virginia uses new technology to pursue more data about what's going on in tropical forests and other ecosystems around the world.
As a non-profit, they have a goal of a sustainable planet, but we're going to learn how they've learned to measure what was once unmeasurable -- and then to share that data to promote change and improvement.

Do the ‘darker’ channels and means that exist for searching the web in anonymity ultimately spell doom for the wider march towards open data?
So-called ‘open data’ is supposed to be an instrument for breaking down information gaps across industries and letting companies share benchmarks and best practices that raise productivity – all information should be open and that should (theoretically) include granular data such as logs and users’ usage of websites (within the boundaries set by reasonable privacy concerns) and so on.

Learn how the IoT Cloud will power the world of tomorrow and why managing IoT through the cloud is as important as cloud computing itself. Learn how the devices of tomorrow will work on business models that reflect a new business strategy and a way to consume services.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ian Khan, Manager, Innovation & Marketing at Solgenia, will discuss how powered by the cloud and made possible by high tech manufacturing, sensors and devices with one way and even two way ability of control will devise a new IoT Cloud enabled world.

As a recent graduate, and now professor in the University of Connecticut's Business Analytics and Project Management masters program, I have a lot of conversations surrounding the topic of "Big Data" and questions such as, "What does that term actually mean?"
Big Data is a fairly new topic and what seems to be an elusive term for many. Conversations are important to help bring clarity to Big Data, as well as generate ideas about how we can shape, not only what it is, but also the future of where it's going.

In their session at DevOps Summit, Asaf Yigal, co-founder and the VP of Product at Logz.io, and Tomer Levy, co-founder and CEO of Logz.io, will explore the entire process that they have undergone – through research, benchmarking, implementation, optimization, and customer success – in developing a processing engine that can handle petabytes of data.
They will also discuss the requirements of such an engine in terms of scalability, resilience, security, and availability along with how the architecture accomplishes these requirements.
Lastly, they will review the gory details of the technolo...

The multi-trillion economic opportunity around the "Internet of Things" (IoT) is emerging as the hottest topic for investors in 2015. As we connect the physical world with information technology, data from actions, processes and the environment can increase sales, improve efficiencies, automate daily activities and minimize risk.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ed Maguire, Senior Analyst at CLSA Americas, will describe what is new and different about IoT, explore financial, technological and real-world impact across consumer and business use cases. Why now?
Significant corporate and venture...

Traditionally IT has been seen as a cost center with nothing but a cost associated with enabling, supporting and maintaining anything IT. IT on the other hand is an integral part of today’s enterprise that often does not have a replacement. IT can however be turned into a powerful profit center. IT can be empowered by giving it tools and mechanisms to enable chargebacks to work as an independent entity within an enterprise and offer services to its stakeholders. Powered by Solgenia’s revolutionary Cloud Monetization platform Powua, Enterprise IT can now create chargebacks to the granularity of...

It’s time to talk more vociferously about open data.
A better headline for this piece would be: why open data is not an overnight sensation or indeed a turn of a dial or a flick of a switch, i.e., it is not something automatically achieved without some kind of longer term strategic drive, which, in itself, typically needs to be driven by a defined longer term strategic need.

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.